Will We Meet Again?
by WolfessLizi
Summary: A spin-off of superfreakerz, "Til Death Do We Part." What if Lucy died while visiting her parents' graves? Lucy will continue to reincarnate, but will she ever find Natsu again? A story of misfortune, loss, and love. NaLu; Reincarnation/Immortal Universe.
1. An Unexpected Occurrence

Author's Note: This is a spin-off of superfreakerz, "Til Death Do We Part." It is not part of their canon. I came up with this idea as I was reading, and superfreakerz gave me the go-ahead to write it up. It is part of the Fairy Tail AU that involves reincarnation and immortality. It does not follow superfreakerz story exactly, and there will be some differences.

* * *

Chapter 1: An Unexpected Occurrence

Lucy slowly moved her hand from her aching side and cursed under her breath.

Red.

The sight of her fingers, sticky and dark from her own blood wasn't what Lucy had wanted to see. She tried to breathe in a little deeper, but the pain that shot through her body made her muscles tense uncomfortably. She knew what a punctured lung felt like-it had been one of the significant injuries during a car wreck that had killed her. As the pressure slowly started to increase, Lucy could imagine her lung filling with blood. Glancing down at the growing puddle of crimson around her, she knew she was running out of time. It would take too much time for anyone to make it to the cemetery. She'd either bleed out or drown.

She slowly leaned back against her parents' headstone. She could almost laugh at the irony of the situation. How unlucky did she have to be to be robbed while visiting a grave? She'd given him her purse, but he made sure to dig his knife deep into her side before he ran.

From where she was sitting, the only lucky thing about this situation was that she had worn her locket on her visit. With shaking fingers, she managed to unlatch it. Lucy frowned as the golden chain turned in her hand, a single drop of blood sliding down the metal.

Lucy took another labored breath before she began to dig into the earth with her right hand. She grimaced at the feeling of the dirt sticking to her wet hand. She was starting to feel dizzy by the time the locket was safely buried in the ground.

At least she wouldn't have to take it off her own corpse again.

Lucy chuckled slightly, wincing afterward.

Her mind was starting to get a little fuzzy. What else did she need to do?

Vaguely, the thought of Natsu formed in her mind. Damn, she had promised him that she'd be back soon. They had plans...

Everything was blurry as she punched in his phone number. She couldn't prevent herself from making a face when she felt the grime that covered the screen touch her cheek.

Her whole body was starting to tremble. Damn, was she already going into shock...?

The ringing seemed to go on forever.

Lucy prayed he'd pick up.

"Hey, this is Natsu. I can't come to the phone right now. Leave me a message, and I'll get back to you."

Lucy let her head tip back into the hard stone behind her.

"Fuck..."

She heard a faint beep.

Right... she was supposed to leave a message.

"Natsu..." She tried to start, but she was too quiet.

He wouldn't be able to hear her like this.

She tried again, putting more strength into the sound. Everything was starting to spin, and a gurgling cough slipped from her lips. She gritted her teeth after spitting out a string of blood.

"Natsu, I'm sorry." Lucy took another wet breath, coughing lightly. "It's going to be.. awhile before I can.. make it back to Fairy Tail. I'm.. going to miss you.. all of you.. so much." Lucy's voice cracked, a tear sliding down her cheek.

Her vision was starting to fade. It seemed like she was going to bleed out before she drowned herself- a small miracle, she supposed.

Her arm was getting so heavy, it was hard to hold the phone.

"Hey, Natsu.. you know I love you, right?"

Lucy's arm slipped. She barely felt it hit the ground.

She let her eyes slip closed.

It hadn't been a bad life, she supposed.

Even still, she couldn't help but feel she'd been cheated.


	2. Another Perspective and The Aftermath

Author's Note: This is a spin-off of superfreakerz, "Til Death Do We Part." It is not part of their canon. I came up with this idea as I was reading, and superfreakerz gave me the go-ahead to write it up. It is part of the Fairy Tail AU that involves reincarnation and immortality. It does not follow superfreakerz story exactly, and there will be some differences.

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Chapter 2: Another Perspective and The Aftermath

It was so dull without Lucy around. Natsu had gotten so used to having her around, it just didn't feel right without her. After a couple of hours hearing Natsu sigh and grumble as he shifted around trying to get comfortable, Gray had had enough. With some help from Erza, they dragged him from the room on a forced trip around the town.

No one noticed when his phone fell out of his pocket.

Natsu discovered his missing device halfway through the forced excursion, but he shrugged it off. What was the likelihood someone would need him today of all days?

Later that night, when the trio finally made their way back to Fairy Tail, Natsu scooped his phone off the floor and plopped down on his bed. The bar was closed, so the whole gang was able to move around as they pleased. It was quiet down in the basement bedrooms.

_1 Missed Call, 1 New Voicemail_

Natsu lazily unlocked his phone, and casually opened his missed call log.

Lucy?

Natsu quickly scrolled over to his voicemail.

The first time he tried to play it, his volume was too low to hear the first half. He smiled when Lucy said she loved him… she hadn't said that to him before.

The second time, he was confused. Why wasn't Lucy coming home when she planned? He heard coughing... was she sick?

The third time, he was able to hear just how strained her voice was, how... wet... her coughing sounded.

He was sitting up, muscles tense, the fourth time. He focused on how the words she was saying sounded, the break when she said she'd miss him, them.

He was starting to panic by the fifth time-it was the first time he'd really heard the thump at the end of the call. Had Lucy dropped the phone?

Trying to stay calm, Natsu called Lucy.

Over, and over, and over.

After the twelfth call without an answer, Natsu was starting to panic. He slipped twice while trying to launch himself up the stairs to the bar. The door nearly came off the hinges because of how hard he slammed it open. His eyes were frantic, and his breathing was heavy. It was clear to everyone in the room that he was beginning to have a panic attack.

Erza and Jellal shared a look, both accustomed to the overwhelming feelings that can be triggered during anxiety. They still struggled from their experiences before finding Fairy Tail. Since Erza was closer to Natsu, she slowly made her way to his side. Her hands gently rested on his shoulders, with her grip gradually tightening to help center him. She spoke quietly, steadily. When Natsu's darting eyes focused enough to meet hers, he latched onto her. Erza let out a puff of air from the sudden tight embrace but wrapped her arms around his torso with the same amount of pressure.

Erza could feel how hard he was shaking. Jellal walked closer to the duo, using his body to hide the scene slightly. Fairy Tail was a family, but it was still unnerving to have everyone watching someone have a breakdown.

It took thirty minutes before Natsu could ease his crying long enough to start gasping out words. The only two that Erza and Jellal could make out were "phone" and "Lucy." Jellal helped to carefully pry Natsu's fingers from the death grip they had on his phone while Erza lightly rocked Natsu back and forth.

Natsu kept repeating those two words like a broken record, increasing the volume as he went. By this point, Levy was kneeling beside Erza and Natsu, her worry evident.

Jellal couldn't help but think that it had to be pretty bad for Natsu to be reacting like this. He was rather attached to Lucy... they were dating, weren't they? It seemed like other than his original family and Makarov, Lucy was the only mortal Natsu had been close to. Maybe she had broken up with him? It didn't sound like something she would have done over the phone, but Jellal also acknowledged that he didn't know her that well.

At first, Jellal didn't see anything too unusual when he looked at Natsu's screen. Lucy ignoring his Natsu's calls supported Jellal's initial idea until he listened to the last voicemail she sent him.

A chill shot down his spine with the first word, and his feelings of dread only grew as he listened to the rest of the message. He knew those noises all too well.

"Erza."

Jellal's tone was so hard, the entire room dropped into a dead silence. Erza's eyes darted toward Jellal, and the grim look on his face and the haunted glint in his eyes told her all she needed to know.

Lucy wasn't coming back.

Jellal was the one who reported Lucy missing. It took some time, but the police were able to trace her route back to the town she had been visiting. The Jane Doe in their morgue was finally identified, and Lucy was buried beside Layla Heartfilia, her most recent mother.

The wails Natsu emitted when he saw Lucy's obituary would haunt Fairy Tail for years to come.

Natsu went into hiding a couple decades early. He couldn't cope with the loss of someone he was so close to so soon. Two decades or so later, it came time for the rest of the immortals who had known Lucy to go into hiding as well.


	3. Lucy's Luck Finally Runs Out

Author's Note: This is a spin-off of superfreakerz, "Til Death Do We Part." It is not part of their canon. I came up with this idea as I was reading, and superfreakerz gave me the go-ahead to write it up. It is part of the Fairy Tail AU that involves reincarnation and immortality. It does not follow superfreakerz story exactly, and there will be some differences.

If y'all couldn't tell by this point, it can get a little dark in some places.

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Chapter 3: In Which It Seems Lucy's Luck Finally Runs Out

Lucy had known she was fortunate in her previous three lives—even the emotional abuse she had suffered from Jude Heartfilia wasn't unbearable. All in all, she had been pretty blessed. The friendships she had made as Lucy Heartfilia were precious, albeit too short-lived.

It figured that hard times would plague her after those happy days. Whatever had been looking after her during those first three lives seemed to have abandoned her. Lucy died until she began to believe she was cursed.

Lucy Aaron, age three, death by starvation due to parental neglect. Diana Aaron was beautiful in face and ugly at heart. She didn't care about the baby sired by a random man. If anything, Lucy just affected the amount of money that could be spent on drugs. The only reason Lucy lived as long as she did was because the wife of Diana's pimp had thought she was cute. Even so, no one mourned after her death.

Lucy Smith drowned at the age of two. Amber Smith did her best to protect Lucy from Jonathan Smith, but in the end, she just wasn't strong enough. Jonathan's abusive and sadistic nature led him to punish Lucy for Amber's perceived "faults." It was Amber's screams as Jonathan drowned her child that finally led to neighbors calling the police. Jonathan spent the rest of his life in prison. Amber, although free from Jonathan, never got over the death of her firstborn child.

Lucy Rodriguez was five when her father Francisco killed their whole family in an unexpected murder-suicide. Her mother, Emily, had been pregnant with twins. Lucy's chance at finally having siblings went down the drain alongside Francisco's factory job.

Lucy Hamilton had lived the longest, making it to age ten. Her parents were loving and treated her kindly, but she had died from a rare childhood cancer anyway. Lucy lost track of all the surgeries and treatments her little body had been subjected to in the hopes of recovery. Alex and Angel Hamilton had pulled her mind back from the brink—they reminded her that light can shine even in the worst times. They gave her the motivation to push through the bad memories to cling to the positive ones. The Hamilton's were the only family after the Heartfilia's who had been within the upper-middle class.

Her current reincarnation, Lucy Heart, seemed to be following the same dire pattern as Aaron and Smith. Cecelia Heart died in childbirth, which was a traumatizing experience in itself. Chad Heart was a drunk, and a mean one at that. He was a burly man with thick arms, a beer belly, and a massive fist. He constantly meandered from job to job—the money he did manage to make was drunk away. His rent was always late, and the utilities were off the majority of the time. Throughout her younger years, they had been homeless a couple of times. The only reason Chad even kept Lucy around was for the government benefits they received. Lucy never benefited from any of the assistance, however. He would never be referred to as one of her fathers—he didn't deserve that right.

Lucy Heart had never been to school and didn't have any friends. If she hadn't lived other lives, she would have been sorely behind. The only human contact outside of her father she had was with the current landlady, who occasionally snuck worn-out hand-me-down clothes and food scraps to the pitiful child.

Lucy's pale skin was littered in cuts and bruises from Chad's drunken rampages. Her ribs stuck out of her skin, and her cheeks didn't have the youthful appearance associated with a seven-year-old girl. Her brown eyes, although dulled by hunger, shone with wisdom beyond her years. She never cried; crying was a show of weakness that angered her father and made the beatings worse.

-/-/-

No one else was ever home when Chad came stumbling through the front door. Some nights he would simply pass out on the nearest surface, and Lucy would sigh in relief. Some nights he would only sleep after he couldn't find her hiding spot. It was the nights that he lifted Lucy up by her blonde hair and beat the day's frustration out on her that she thought she might actually be in hell.

Tonight had been one of those nights.

Chad had finally gone to his room—Lucy could tell because his loud snores echoed throughout their tiny apartment. Her knees were curled into her chest, her breath coming in short quiet pants. Ever so slowly, she started trying to spread her throbbing limbs out. Her hands were shaking as she tried to move them from her face. Her left hand was covered in blood. After managing to spread her fingers, Lucy deducted it was most likely from the skin that was split above the eye that was swollen shut. Lucy was sweating by the time she was able to straighten her legs, but she dared not make a single sound. Tears were streaming down her face by the time she managed to get up on her knees. Her right arm was wrapped tight around her torso, cradling the ribs on the left side of her body that felt cracked.

Lucy unsteadily got to her feet and hobbled to the bathroom. She couldn't help grimacing when she saw her face. Her left eye was probably going to be swollen shut for at least a couple days. Bruises ran from the left side of her face down her arms towards her legs. The left side of her torso was especially discolored.

'_That explains the difficulty breathing…'_

Lucy couldn't help but run her eyes over her body once again in the mirror. Her heartbeat was beginning to race, and a twinge of panic was able to slip through her well-built walls. If she didn't do something, and quickly, her eighth life was also going to come to a quick end.

It had been twenty-seven years since she had last felt truly and completely safe. Twenty-seven years since she had been in Magnolia with her friends. Twenty-seven years since she had last seen Natsu. Natsu would be in his fifties now... Had he gotten married? Did he have grandkids now? The thought pained her heart. In an ideal world, it would have been her that had gotten to stay with him. What about Levy and Gajeel? Jellal and Erza? Juvia and Gray? She wanted to see them so badly, but her place beside them was long gone.

Thankful that the water was on for once, Lucy delicately washed her tender face and ran a wet washcloth over her bloody hair. There was no way she was going to risk trying to take a shower. She had been dragged out of the water and beaten for thinking she had a right to bathe too many times for her to risk taking a shower while Chad was in the house. The swelling in her left hand made braiding her long, tangled hair more time-consuming than usual, but at least it would be out of her face.

Lucy gingerly walked over to her small corner of the living room. Stifling a hiss from the pain that shot through her from bending over, Lucy grabbed her only hoodie. It was two sizes too big and had several holes, but it was the warmest thing she had. She knew there was no way she could pull it on without making a sound, Lucy simply laid it beside her on the back of the couch. She shoved her dirty tennis shoes on afterward, ignoring the feel of the worn fabric on her bare feet. The slightly blood-stained tank top and ratty jeans would have to just stay put.

She had wanted to wait until she was a little older before trekking across the country. Still, Chad's behavior was escalating too quickly for that to remain a feasible option. Chad's wallet strewn out on the living room floor from their initial struggle suggested her luck wasn't completely gone—if it had been in his pants she would have been screwed. In all her lives, Lucy had never been a thief—that would just have to change today. She felt bitter as she counted out the various small bills that had been within the leather. Fifty dollars... if train fare was around the same as it was, it should be enough to get her to the city where the Ashley's were buried. She didn't know how the hell she was going to get from Konzern to Magnolia, but she couldn't focus on that right now.

It was nearing three am. Chad had been absolutely smashed by the time he went to bed but, Lucy couldn't risk waiting until after Chad left for work. She shoved the money into her jeans pocket with her good hand and grabbed the gray hoodie from the couch. If she died this time, at least it was because of a decision she made.

With every single shred of courage Lucy could muster, she unlocked the front door. She couldn't help but fearfully look over her shoulder before moving across the threshold. By the time the wood was shut behind her, adrenaline was coursing through her veins like electricity. Lucy stumbled down the steps, taking off in a sprint once her soles touched the concrete. Her side was shooting splitting pains, and her depth perception was a little off. Still, Lucy continued until she was nowhere near the rundown neighborhood she had once lived in.

After ten blocks, Lucy had to stop and brace herself on a lamppost. Fear and exhilaration could only propel her so long in the chilly weather. Biting her lip, Lucy was able to whine herself through slipping the sweatshirt over her head. She lifted the hood to sooth her cold ears and help hide her battered face. Lucy couldn't afford to lose too much time—she was determined to make it to the station for the first train out of this God-forsaken town.

Lucy wasn't sure of the exact location of the station. She knew that she could hear it from the window of the apartment when the road was quiet, but that didn't help her too much. She had three hours until the first train took off—Lucy figured that train would have the least number of passengers.

It took two and a half hours of roaming, backtracking, and wrong turns before she was able to walk through the station's gate. It was by mere chance that this station was busy enough to warrant an electronic ticket machine. Lucy was correct in her assumption about the ticket price, which was both fortunate and misfortunate. She had enough to get where she needed to go, but she would be flying by the seat of her pants afterward. Lucy didn't think twice about pressing the button.

_'Konzern, here I come...'_

The greater the distance between her and Chad, the better. The chance of him putting in the effort to find her was low, and he would probably assume he had spent all of his money at the bar since she had never nicked any before. Searches took money and care—Chad had neither.

Lucy hunched her shoulders slightly as she walked across the platform. She picked a compartment far away from wandering eyes and didn't relax until she was sitting comfortably by herself. Lucy shifted until both her knees and her head could lean into the seatback. It was softer than most of the places she ended up sleeping.

Chad wouldn't be awake for another four or five hours.

As soon as the train began to rock back and forth along the tracks, Lucy was asleep.


End file.
